It was a tough day for underdog backers on Monday in Tokyo and Beijing and not a great one for me, with the one underdog that won in Japan knocking out my outright.
Go Soeda had lost all of his previous 12 main draw matches in Tokyo, so of course he defeated Jan-Lennard Struff, while the two underdog winners in Beijing were both ones from my shortlist: Zhizhen Zhang over Kyle Edmund and Andrey Rublev over Grigor Dimitrov.
The one I did go for, Lorenzo Sonego, started well and led by a set, but couldn’t sustain his best level; lost a competitive one and we didn’t get a tie break either.
The weather looks fine in Tokyo on Tuesday, with 28C heat in the shade, minimal wind and around 50% humidity, while Beijing will be sunnier at 30C, with lower humidity and windier at 17kph gusts.
Novak Djokovic makes his singles reappearance after a shoulder problem on Tuesday and after Monday’s doubles he said: "I think I had all different kind of practice sessions during the past few days with different players and also doubles today and it seems like my shoulder is fine. I’m hoping that that’s going to be the case this week as well for singles."
Djokovic is one of several solid-looking favourites on Tuesday in Tokyo, with most of the others looking hard to oppose readily as well.
I was courtside in Budapest earlier this season when Radu Albot and Filip Krajinovic clashed on the clay there, with Krajinovic a not entirely convincing two set winner, and that result may turn around on Tuesday.
On their outdoor hard court stats from the last 12 months Albot’s are better, with the Moldovan posting a combined hold/break figure of 104.6 compared to Krajinovic’s 100.5.
My worry with Albot though is the speed of the courts generally in Asia, with much of his good work coming on slower hard courts, such as those in Delray Beach, Indian Wells and Miami.
In all main tour matches in Asia he’s 1-8 win/loss, so I’m not sold enough to back Albot here.
Another option is Juan Ignacio Londero +3.5 games against Jordan Thompson, with Londero having shown a good level on hard courts lately, despite draws including Roger Federer, Berrettini, Djokovic and Sam Querrey.
He beat Querrey and Berrettini (the latter was coming back from injury though) and took Djokovic to a tie break (again Djokovic was probably struggling with injury) and played well against Federer, so I don’t see this being easy for Thompson.
If you look at their serve stats this season at main level on outdoor hard they’re the same, with Thompson winning 70.5% on first serve (Londero 69.5%) and 50.1% on second serve (Londero better at 54%), equating to 63.5% service points won for each man.
Thompson is slightly better on return, at 22.3% breaks (Londero 20.6%) but Londero has played some very good opposition in his limited number of hard court matches.
The Aussie also has a limited record in Asia at main level, winning only one of his four career matches, and I’d expect Londero to put up a good fight here.
In Beijing, more of the underdogs look more than capable of upsetting the favourites and these include, for me: Andy Murray, Richard Gasquet, Guido Pella, Mikhail Kukushkin, and Albert Ramos.
And Murray is the one I’m going to take a chance on, with the Scot clearly a bit below his level of old, but still very capable of dismantling a big server like Berrettini.
Murray has won 21 of his last 245 matches against the big servers in my database, with two of those three defeats coming when he was injured, so his record is superb versus the bigger hitters.
Indeed, on outdoor hard at main level against the big servers on my list Murray has won 35 of his 44 matches and broken serve against these guys over 25% of the time.
He’s only played 0.20 tie breaks per set as well, so he’s been winning the sets well by and large and although Murray’s obviously not at his best level yet (he says he’s playing “top-60/top-70” tennis right now) his return prowess should keep him in it.
Berrettini only breaks serve 15.5% of the time in his outdoor hard court matches this past 12 months and all-time against the current top-25 on all surfaces he breaks serve 12.4% of the time.
This leads me to back Murray +1.5 games on the handicap here at 2.32, with Berrettini unlikely to break Murray very often with his limited return game.
Murray will surely look to expose the questionable movement of Berrettini with his variety and we’ll be seeing the Scot try and shift the Italian around and bring him to the net where possible.
The other reason I feel an ‘upset’ could be on the cards here is that often players have a bit of a let down after the high of doing really well at a major, as was shown by no less a committed and professional player than Kevin Anderson two years ago.
Anderson won only three of his last eight matches of the season (losing to the likes of Ryan Harrison and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez) after making the US Open final and we’ve seen both Berrettini and Grigor Dimitrov suffer losses as favourites so far since New York.
It should be an entertaining watch and I’m happy to risk Murray here.
Richard Gasquet has obvious chances against Dominic Thiem, whose record in this swing of the tour is weak, but I don’t trust Gasquet’s fitness enough to back him at this price.
Guido Pella is often underrated on quicker surfaces and shouldn’t be, but who knows what to expect from defending champ Nikoloz Basilashvili, who retired with a shoulder injury last time out and anything is possible with the Georgian.
Felix Auger-Aliassime looks done at the moment at the end of a maiden season at this level and could be outfoxed by Albert Ramos, whose form has been much better the second half of the season than the first.
Mikhail Kukushkin has every chance against my man Fabio Fognini if Fabio doesn’t fancy it, but I’m hoping that the Italian likes his chances this week and is fit for duty.
Best Bets
0.5 points win Murray +1.5 games to beat Berrettini at 2.32
0.5 points win Londero +3.5 games to beat Thompson at 1.85
